


The Trouble with Children

by Endemic



Category: The Walking Dead (Video Game)
Genre: Consent, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Nuke (twdg), Reference to character death, Spoilers, The Talk, makeshift family, twdg - Freeform, twdgs2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:12:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endemic/pseuds/Endemic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Luke feels like he's dealing with two children instead of one.  [Luke/Nick, established relationship, featuring a large percentage of Big Brother!Luke]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble with Children

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before 'A House Divided'. All deviations from the canon plot are a result of such.

Being a big brother was not easy, especially since Luke was pretty sure  _father figure_  would be a more responsible role to take. However, Clementine seemed to have had her fair share of father figures and did not appear willing to accept a replacement; it gave Luke excuse enough to reject that role for a title that held far less responsibility.

It was even harder when your partner in parenting was less mature than the child you were trying to raise. Nick wasn't the best role model for anyone--he refused to put a filter on his language around Clem and his marksmanship wasn't exactly inspiring. But he was willing to defend her against walkers and their own indifferent group, so it made him her biggest ally other than Luke himself.

Clementine had grown up too fast, and in a lot of ways she was even more mature than most adults he'd met. The girl was literally made for this world, her sense of right and wrong shaped by the things she had gone through in the years since walkers. Even though they had all spent the same amount of time trying to survive in it, Clementine had spent less time in the comfort of the normal world. The world before walkers. It was harder for the adults to give up those comforts, Luke thought. They'd spent too much of their lives working towards comfort to give it up so easily, clinging too readily to things they used to view as necessities--beds, walls, human companionship--and would put themselves at risk for those things far too often.

He figured it it was like learning languages--much easier for children with their little, spongy brains. Clementine was proof of how adaptable children were. When he'd pointed this out to Rebecca, she had only scoffed at him. He couldn't really begin to understand how horrifying pregnancy was in the reality of their current world, so he dropped it.

"Y'know, I really believe that a new generation is the key to the survival of the human race," Luke said, breaking the silence engulfing their trek through the woods.

Now that Pete was gone, Nick and Clem usually assisted Luke in all things hunting and scrounging related. Responsibility for Clementine in general fell to him, partly because nobody else wanted to deal with her and partly because he didn't trust anyone else to. It really should have been Carlos who took the responsibility for her, since he already had experience raising a daughter, but he was only concerned for Sarah and made it clear an additional dependent would endanger his precious, sheltered daughter.

"New generation?" Clem reiterated, air-quotes audible.

"Yeah, kids like you."

"Kids like me?” She shot him a sideways glance, which looked way too world weary to be adorning an eleven year old.

Okay, maybe she was kinda a handful. "Yeah, kids who're going to end up spending more of their lives in the post-walker world than not. They'll – you'll be better at surviving that I ever will. Heck, after walking in on you in that shed, taking out that walker with a hammer – I suspect you already are better at it."

Nick grumbled something between a sigh and a growl. "Oh give it a rest Luke. If I hear you go on about that one more time I'm going to bash your skull in with a hammer, walker or no."

"Nick's right, it wasn't anything special."

"Pfft." There was no arguing with those two.

Clementine really didn't know her own strength, which wasn't exactly to say she underestimated herself, she just exuded confidence and caution all the same. She was practical, that was the best way to put it. The fact that she could maintain such a disposition proved his point in and of itself.

"What's that up ahead?" Nick asked, indicating a brick building just beyond the treeline, in a small clearing.

For the first time since they'd left the safety of the house, Clementine's gaze fell to her feet. "It looks like one of those campground bathrooms."

"Might as well search it," Luke said, eyes on Clementine to gauge her reaction. It was odd for her to drop her defenses, even when accompanied by adults.

Clementine stayed silent.

"Alright," Nick stopped them just outside of the bathrooms. "Men check men's room and ladies check the ladies?"

It took everything in Luke not to roll his eyes. It was a stupid, not to mention pointless plan, but he knew exactly why Nick had suggested it. "That doesn't sound like the safest idea," Luke said pointedly. "And don't even start about gender segregation. That's not necessary anymore."

"It'll be a lot quicker, and you said it yourself that the girl can handle her own."

Nick wasn't making the suggestion out of concern for haste. They still had hours of daylight to get back home and safety was always worth the extra time. They all knew that. No, Nick was just itching for any semblance of alone time. Ever since Clementine had chosen to stay with the group for the time being, Luke was almost never without her, since no one else would bear the responsibility and it didn't sit right with him to leave the girl unattended, even as capable as she was. The girl had taken out an adult walker with a hammer, for goodness sake. But that didn't mean the girl didn't need the company. Feeling alone in the world was hard enough for an adult; Luke couldn't imagine how damaging it could be to a child, who by nature should crave familial bonds.

 It added to Nick's frustration that Luke also had to share a room with the girl, since they didn't have an extra and Rebecca refused to allow her the couch, complaining that the sleeping girl was an eyesore to whoever had to stay up to keep watch. The reasoning was ridiculous, but he'd learned a long time ago that it was easier to accommodate than argue. He honestly didn't know what she had against the little girl, since he found it hard to believe an eleven year old could pull off the sort of espionage mission Rebecca thought her capable of.

Either way, his new-found makeshift guardianship had been taking a toll on Nick, since he was no longer able to sneak into Luke's bed in the middle of the night.

The simplest solution had been to just room together after what had happened to Pete, freeing up Luke's room for Clementine, but Nick had refused due to the perceived suspicion it would cause regarding their relationship. Life was hard enough without all of the added secrets, and Luke was mostly fine with everyone knowing about them. Lately he'd been trying his hardest to shun Nick's affection in order to get back at him for his refusal to let go of his need for secrecy. Pete's death had left Nick particularly vulnerable and needy, even in the wake of the passing months, so every time Luke pointedly shunned Nick, it was with mixed emotions. He was trying his best to put his foot down regarding the secrecy without throwing Nick back into a depression.

"Luke's right, it's a stupid idea," Clementine said, voice authoritative in a way that used to grate on him. It still did grate on everyone else; there was something about a child asserting themselves as an authority on any subject that drove adults crazy. All Luke had to do to get over that was remember her glaring straight at him, hammer poised above her, ready to strike the already utterly defeated shed walker. Right after she had stitched her arm up herself too. God, she was ridiculously capable.

Nick whipped around to face her. "What did you say, little girl?"

"You heard me. It's dumb to trap ourselves inside a building like this without leaving someone out here to keep watch."

"Keep watch for what? There's nothing around for miles."

"You don't know that." Clementine said. "You never know that."

"Fine, if you say so. You stay out here and keep watch then. Holler if you need us."

"Okay."

"Whoa whoa whoa, separating in general is a bad idea. Let's just all go in together." Luke directed his last words at Nick, more of a warning than an attempt at persuasion.

"The girl has a good point. C'mon, let's just get it over with. It'll only take a minute."

When Nick put a hand on his back to guide him inside the restroom, it was all over. The warmth of Nick's hand soaked through his shirt and was threatening to make him weak in the knees. It baffled him every time, how such a small touch could make his heart swell and his legs feel like jelly. It was like the feeling of crawling into a clean, warm bed on a chilly evening, just a sense that all was right in the world--the quiet that settled over a room when the last walker gurgle outside could be heard wandering further and further away.

It was rare for companionship to inspire such a feeling of peace at a mere touch, even before the world had ended.

Luke couldn't resist, he let Nick pull him through the swinging door without more than a nod at Clementine, who immediately turned around to survey the area. She would be okay. She beat a Walker to death with a hammer, after all.

Once the door closed behind them, Nick took all of three seconds to check the stalls for walkers before he was back on Luke, shoving him into the wall and kissing him with more violence than usual, all teeth and clawing hands.

"Fuck, I love the way you fucking smell," Nick breathed in the middle of dragging his teeth down Luke's neck. "Best damn thing about the apocalypse."

It wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever come out of Nick's mouth, and admittedly Luke kind of understood what he meant. Getting used to generally terrible smells was par for the course when surrounded by the living dead. They were lucky to have running water at the cabin, but it wasn't exactly like they could waste it on daily showers. Carrying around deodorant was laughable, even if they did come across it knocked over on store shelves often enough. It was surprising how comforting the familiar smells of your companions could be, however strong those smells were.

"We really don't have time for this," Luke said, even as he buried his fingers in Nick's hair.

Nick's hands were snaking around his hips, pushing and grasping at the skin there hard enough to hurt.

"Shut up, would you? The girl will be fine.” Nick bit Luke's shoulder, eliciting an only half-contained yelp. "What won't be fine is me if you keep giving me the cold shoulder."

He wouldn't have to give Nick the cold shoulder if the man would just let him tell everyone about their relationship. Luke had made it clear to Nick why he was being avoided in the small moments when they could be together in private. Nick firmly believed that they would be kicked out of the group if anyone found out. He had especially been afraid of his uncle's reaction, but Luke supposed it didn't matter anymore.

Luke knew better than that. There was no way the group could afford to lose them, even if they disapproved of their relationship. Nick and Luke were the youngest and strongest members of the group; if they were gone, the group would be mostly defenseless, what with Rebecca pregnant and unable to maneuver as well as she used to.

Nick's touches weren't exactly angry, just desperate. The truth was that Nick didn't really have the heart for anything too rough, so when his hand slipped into the back pocket of Luke's jeans, pulling him forward and pinching the sensitive skin of his neck too sharply between his teeth, Luke gasped again, more out of surprise than anything else.

"Nick." Luke's voice was a harsh whisper, "What the hell's gotten into you?" Luke really did want an answer, but it probably didn't seem that way, because he forced Nick's head up for a kiss that was more teeth and tongue than anything else, successfully turning Nick's reply into a series of incomprehensible reverberations.

The sound of a door swinging closed rang out in the bathroom like a gunshot.

Luke and Nick whipped around so fast that they clunked their heads together painfully in the process.

 _Clementine_. It was Clementine.

It was worse than a walker bursting through the door because it was Clementine and Nick's hand was still wrist-deep in Luke's back pocket and Luke's hand was under Nick's shirt and they were standing much, much too close

And...

And she was pointing a gun at them.

"What the hell, kid?" Nick said, shoving himself away from Luke as soon as his brain processed what was happening.

Luke was wrong, Clementine wasn't pointing the gun at both of them, just Nick, because when he moved back the barrel of her gun followed him.

"You--You're not a walker?" Clementine asked, wavering voice a stark contrast to her steady grasp on the gun.

"Do I look like a fucking walker?!"

Luke would have rolled his eyes if the situation wasn't so touchy, Nick really couldn't handle stressful or tedious situations.

"You were biting him," Clementine accused, eyes narrowed.

Christ, how long had she been there?

Her chest was rising and falling too quickly, what she saw must have really spooked her, because she was definitely on the defensive.

When Luke could swallow his embarrassment long enough to speak, his voice was as gentle. "Clem, it's okay, I'm fine."

Clementine tore her eyes away from Nick, which seemed like somewhat of a difficult task, and looked him over.

Luke nodded at her and she lowered her gun.

"I heard noises," she said, shuffling in place and refusing to make eye contact. "I thought... There might be a walker."

"I know, I know, it's okay"

"The hell it is!" Nick said, throwing his arms up in frustration. "Kid almost shot me!"

" _Almost_  is like when you  _almost_  shot me and  _almost_  killed me over a dog bite," Clementine said. " _Almost_  is missing. I didn't even shoot."

Nick opened his mouth to retort but just ended up spluttering a string of nonsense, because really, what could he say to that?

Luke laughed in spite of himself, and Clementine caught his eye, smiling a little.

"What the fuck, Luke?"

"Chill out , Nick. She's right, you have no right to scold her about being trigger happy."

Nick just growled and pushed past both of them to storm out of the bathroom.

As the last of Luke's laugher died down, an uncomfortable silence settled over the room and Luke's embarrassment flooded back into his cheeks.

"Uh... About what you saw, we were just uh." How was he supposed to explain it to an eleven year old? "Kissing."

"That was Kissing?"

"...Yeah. Sometimes adults like to kiss like that when they're," Luke hesitated, knowing Nick would be uncomfortable by the frankness of his next words. "In love."

Clementine made the most priceless, confused expression that would have been hilarious if it wasn't for the circumstance. "Oh."

"I'm, uh, sorry you had to see us like that."

"I'm just glad you're not hurt," Clementine said, gesturing towards the door. "We should probably go."

Luke breathed a little easier at that. It was back to business as usual for the child prodigy.

 

***

 

"So are you two like... boyfriend and girlfriend?" Clementine asked him when they were alone later that night. They were up keeping watch, which really involved lounging on the couch and listening for any strange noises rather than any actual watching. They basically just had to stay awake on the first floor and make sure there was nothing creeping around outside, alive or living dead. "Er... Boyfriend and boyfriend?"

Luke would have laughed if he wasn't so mortified by what had happened earlier. The girl had probably never seen romantic exchanges between adults more than the chaste kisses between a husband and wife.  Children rarely walked in on their parents kissing so aggressively that it's mistaken for real violence at first glance. He wanted to crawl in a hole and die. He had yet to stop mulling over just how traumatizing the experience must have been for the girl. She didn't even have the vocabulary to process a relationship like theirs yet, for Christ’s sake.

"Yeah... Yeah, something like that," he said after a moment, completely at a loss for how to deal with the situation.

"Ah."

She didn't seem disgusted, so there was that at least. She probably hadn't been exposed to any sort of same-sex relationship before, which meant that she wouldn't have any of the social conditioning it took to inspire a negative reaction.

"I... Didn't know that could happen," she said, in a way that was more self-depreciating than apologetic. Like it was painful for her to admit, as though she was telling him she didn't know how to load a gun.

"That doesn't make you stupid or anything." The words felt clumsy, inadequate. He didn't know the first thing about confidence building in children.

"I guess," she said, still dubious and then, a little more timid, "So, he wasn't hurting you?"

Luke was thankful that their only light source was the moon through the windows, because his cheeks blazed at the intimacy of the question. She couldn't know just how embarrassing the question was, and her innocence regarding the subject made it worse.

"No, he wasn't hurting me." Luke paused, considering his next words. "He wasn't hurting me because I wanted him to do it."

"You wanted him to hurt you?"

"No, that's not what I meant. If I hadn't wanted him to kiss me, it would have hurt no matter how gentle he was being. Because even words hurt when you don't want someone to say them, right?"

"Right."

"Well, touches can hurt in the same way words can sometimes, the way that sticks with you and makes you angry every time you think about it. Did your um... Lee talk to you about that?"

"No. I think probably because kissing stuff is for grown ups. I didn't need to know. Well, he taught me about guns and killing stuff, which was for grown ups too, but not anymore."

"I think this is important for you to know about too. Especially after what you saw today, I just wanted to provide a ..." Luke searched for a simple way to describe what he meant, floundering in his inability to find a small enough word.

"Context?" Clementine suggested.

"Yeah," he said, taken aback. "Yeah exactly. Context." No matter how many times she surprised him, he always found himself in awe of her vocabulary. That must be the effect of hanging around so many adults. He could only hope that she didn't start picking up Nick's rather colorful vocabulary.

"I already know that it's wrong to do something to someone if they don't want you to do it." She shifted slightly in her seat, glancing up at him under the rim of her hat. "I tried to stop Nick when I saw him pushing you into the wall, didn't I? I know that it's not just the walkers that try to hurt people, that's why I pointed the gun at you two. I'm sorry."

"It's alright, really, you don't have to apologize. Like I said, I'm trying to give some context to it. It is possible to hurt someone in a similar situation to what you saw today. I just wanted you to know that in some cases it's perfectly justified to point a gun at someone for that, if one of the people doesn't want it to happen."

"But how will I know if they want it to happen or not?"

"If it happens to you, you'll know."

Clementine grimaced at that, and Luke almost felt bad for having to expose her to any implications that held.

"Are you saying that if it does happen, it's okay to defend myself like a stranger's trying to capture me, or a walker is trying to kill me?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying, Clem. Even if it's someone you know well, if they don't stop when you ask them to and you don't feel safe, it's okay to threaten violence, and resort to it if you need to. Even if they aren't trying to kill you, just touch you, it's not okay unless you give them permission. Do you understand?"

"Yeah...”

"And I really don't want to have to say this to you, but no one should be doing any kissing unless they're your own age, okay? Ever."

'But what about--"

"Unless it's in a mom and dad sort of way."

"Okay," she said, grinning, her attempt at a complaint gone. "I still don't know how to tell if it's okay or not when it's happening to other people. I can tell when it's okay most of the time... It's just, I never saw anything like what you and Nick were doing. Is that normal?"

If Nick were there he'd be dying of embarrassment, though Luke wasn't far from that point himself. "Yeah it's pretty normal, just... Private. And there's no good way to tell if its consensual when you're not involved, it really depends on the situation. The only real way to know for sure is to ask. I myself would just stay out of it unless it seemed like one person was really being hurt."

"Okay... I think I get it now."

The silence that followed was a bit awkward, but Luke figured that he was the only one who felt that way. In the end, he was glad he'd taken a shot at the subject, since it might end up helping Clementine in the long run. As for the girl, she just seemed lost in thought.

"Luke?" She said after he'd begun to think conversation was over for the remainder of their watch.

"Yeah?"

"Did Nick want us to split up so you two could be alone?"

Her question wasn't as curious as it ought to be, her demeanor resigned. She was asking something she already knew the answer to.

"Yeah, and I knew that. I'm sorry for letting it happen."

If Luke didn't know any better, he would think Clementine was crying. She never cried though, not even when recounting memories that would be downright horrifying for anybody, let alone a child.

"...It's my fault."

"What is?"

"You two needed to be alone because I'm always with you. If you weren't always babysitting me then we wouldn't have had to split up and put everyone at risk."

"Clementine, what are you talking about? No one was put at risk, nothing happened. Sure, it was a stupid thing to do and it could have made us vulnerable, but it won't happen again."

"It happened to me before."

"What?"

"The last people I was with were boyfriend and girlfriend. I think since I was always with them, they didn't have time to be alone together." Her voice was quiet but full of conviction. "Because of that--because of me--they had us split up to wash up in a bathroom like the one we were in today."

"Clementine..."

"I killed them. I left my gun by the sink and when a stranger came in the room, she found me and used my gun to threaten me. When Omid came in to check on me, the stranger got scared and shot him. After that, Christa was different. She lost her baby. She hated me. I thought it was because it was my fault Omid died, because if I had been stronger or smarter I could have saved him. But that's not why she hated me. She hated me because I made them weak." Clementine's fingers twisted into the hem of her shirt, as if grasping at the fabric would ground her more firmly to the earth. "They survived together just the two of them for so long. I killed them."

In just the few months he'd known her, Clementine had tried to shoulder more responsibility for the things that happened in her life than anyone else he'd met both before and after the world turned to shit. She wasn't just trying to feel sorry for herself either, fuel some sort of sadness that made it all too easy to give up. She wasn't trying to give up, she just seemed genuinely sorry for the pain she thought she had caused.

Luke had never wished so hard for the world to go back to the way it used to be. This girl did not deserve to go through the things she had.

"Clem, you didn't endanger anyone. I bet you protected them enough to make up for any slip up. Things just happen that are out of our control." She seemed to respond to that, hopefully remembering things she had done to save her previous guardians. Luke sure as hell had been saved by her more than a handful of times when out in the forest, scouting for game and supplies. "And as for the need for privacy... It's not a child's fault that there are things adults choose to shield them from. That's why I talked to you about some of those things tonight, because there's no sense trying to keep a child ignorant of the dangers they face when it'll just end up coming back to bite them later. Carlos is going to learn that the hard way, eventually."

Luke hadn't been as explicit with the talk he'd given Clementine as he ought to have been, but he couldn't bear to get into the gory details just yet.

"But if it hadn't been for me--"

"Clem, stop. Those people were lucky to have you in their life. You have no idea how much having someone to protect can help to keep people going when they've lost everything. And you are not just dead weight, remember? When I saw you in the shed that day with the hammer raised above your--"

"Oh Jesus Christ, not the fucking shed again," Nick said from the doorway.

Luke turned in time with Clementine to look at Nick, as he made his way over to them, yawning and scratching at his belly underneath his shirt. Even in the half-light Luke could see the dark hair that feathered across his stomach and down further into his pants. Luke's fingers twitched with the restraint it took not to touch him as he stopped within arms reach.

"How long have you been there?" Luke asked, more for Clem than himself.

"Long enough to know you need to let that shed incident go, Lu."

Clementine erupted into laughter at the nickname, and Nick swiped the hat off her head for her insolence.

"Hey!" She gasped, springing up to swipe for it, but Nick held it too high for her reach.

Nick's maturity level was staggering as usual.

Luke smirked. "Hey Clem, remember what I told you about the other day? About where you should kick if you're getting attacked by a man?"

"Yeah?" she asked, jumping for the hat again.

"Feel free to practice on Nick now."

Clementine stopped to stare at Luke for a moment before turning to Nick, smile devious.

Nick dropped the hat, moving faster than he would if a biter was at his heels.

"What the heck? Does it really hurt that much?' Clementine asked over Luke's cackling.

"Yeah," they replied in unison.

"Why?" she asked.

Luke had had enough with embarrassing education for one day. "I don't know," he lied, only feeling a little guilty.

"Because men have balls, sweetie," Nick replied none too gently.

Luke cringed.

Clementine blinked. "What are--"

Luke's hand was over Nick's mouth in an instant and it didn't take very long for Nick to resort to licking the inside of his palm as an escape attempt. It didn't work.

Luke had never pictured himself being good with kids, but he thought that maybe he was somehow, because Clementine was smiling again, at least. If anything, his time knowing Nick had given him a lot of practice dealing with children.

 


End file.
